Kathy Griffin Posts Photo-Filled Tribute To Gloria Vanderbilt Two Years After Falling-Out With Anderson Cooper

Kathy Griffin ended her friendship with Anderson Cooper two years ago, but the comedian still had a lot of love for Cooper’s mother, Gloria Vanderbilt. On Monday, Griffin posted a poignant tribute to Gloria Vanderbilt hours after the famed fashion designer and socialite died at age 95.

In a photo-filled post to her social media pages, Kathy Griffin, who was once best friends with Vanderbilt’s son, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, revealed that Gloria would often refer to her as her “daughter.”

Griffin also recalled the high-end dinner parties Vanderbilt would invite her to and how the wealthy socialite would go out of her way to include her in conversations with her “intellectual” friends. Kathy described Gloria Vanderbilt’s life as “extraordinary” and said she “loved her so much.”

Many fans and famous friends commented on Kathy Griffin’s emotional tribute on Instagram, including Will and Grace star Megan Mullally, who wrote that she knew “how close” the two were. Others wrote that they hope that Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper are able to get their friendship back amid the loss.

Kathy Griffin hinted that she remained close with Gloria Vanderbilt even after her falling-out with Anderson Cooper, telling fans in her Instagram comments that she and Gloria “would hang out downstairs in her art studio.”

“Served me Diet Coke and cherries and tell me stories. It was heaven,” Griffin wrote.

You can see scroll through Kathy Griffin’s tribute to Gloria Vanderbilt below.

Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper were close friends for 17 years, but their friendship ended in May 2017 after the comedian received widespread backlash for posting a controversial severed headshot of Donald Trump. Griffin was also immediately fired from her CNN New Year’s Eve hosting gig with Cooper.

At the time, Cooper took to Twitter to write that he was “appalled by the photo shoot Kathy Griffin took part in” and described it as “clearly disgusting and completely inappropriate.”

The CNN star reportedly did not reach out to Kathy Griffin privately, but when Anderson appeared on Andy Cohen’s Watch What Happens Live, posted on YouTube, he claimed he and Kathy were still friends and that he hoped she “bounces back” from the scandal.

But in an interview with The Cut in August 2017, Kathy Griffin revealed that she was deeply hurt by Anderson’s silence following the scandal. According to Griffin, it took Cooper two months to reach out to her via text after he publicly denounced her joke, and by that time she was done with their friendship.

As recently as March 2019, Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper will still estranged. In an interview with Variety, Griffin said that she was still “devastated” over the end of her friendship with Gloria Vanderbilt’s son.

“It still hurts,” Griffin told Variety. “I mean, I really loved him. I don’t have a punch line for that one.”

In happier times, Kathy Griffin joked with Anderson Cooper about her friendship with his famous mom. In a 2015 interview with the website Seven Days, Griffin even joked that Gloria was “so much cooler than [Anderson] is.” Kathy said that she loved to tease Anderson Cooper by “reminding him that he’ll never be as much fun as his 90-year-old mother.”